the art of letting go

being a grown up
the super ego prevails
heartbreak of the id

Two lefts don't make a right

I don't believe in the one, the right person.

But there are people who are more mature and ready for a relationship; the person who doesn't always have to be right, or in the right, but validates your feelings equally alongside his.

You're in a tricky situation when you are with someone who thinks they are in the right; they are justified. In doing so, they invalidate your feelings. Ie in their head, your emotions are irrational. You are in the wrong.

The person who always wants to do the right thing often ends up inadvertently doing damage. They doesn't see the grey. They bottle up negativity and hide weakness. For underneath the guise of loving words and long-suffering silence, barbs of self-righteous contempt for you cut more slickly than overt argument.

You could both do the same; both think you're in the right; sweep frustration under the carpet. Or you could end up playing the weak, irrational tyrannic who can only do wrong; a narrative written by their desperate need to do right.

On Relationships

The key to a healthy, adult relationship is being able to accept each other. To see someone for who they are. To understand the strength and reason behind what appears to be weakness in the eyes of many others. This is foundation of selflessly respecting and loving someone.

Ironically, one of the keys to being selfless is to recognise your own needs, so you can work out how they fit in the context of the partnership. It involves learning your own boundaries, personal space, and limitations.

It seems like a paradox that in order for healthy attachment and dependence on each other, one must first learn independence. But in the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

Perhaps it is for this reason that I am so mistrustful of praise in courtship. In a subtle way, flattery is holding a mirror to someone else and saying, you are amazing, and I noticed it, therefore I am amazing. Being absorbed by the admiration of the chosen other can amount to narcissistic navel gazing.

Although it feels good, this ends up being very damaging, because you then expect that person to live up to a perfection that does not exist. At the end of the day, this is mere infatuation.

Put in other words, it is easy to see a loved one as an extension of self. The person who completes you. Praise and flattery is the stepping stone to developing an idealised perception of how someone ought to be. But it is simply not right to project that perception on that person. If you do, you end up feeling frustrated by their weaknesses and inequities, because you see them as a reflection on yourself, and resent it.

But in the right context, it can also be encouraging, confidence-building and inspiring. The Pygmalion effect, as it were, to live up to someone else's belief in you. Alain de Botton puts it beautifully in his book, Essays on Love:

"Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are. Our selves could be compared to an amoeba, whose outer walls are elastic, and therefore adapt to the environment. It is not that the amoeba has no dimensions, simply that it has no self-defined shape. It is my absurdist side that an absurdist person will draw out of me, and my seriousness that a serious person will evoke. If someone thinks I am shy, I will probably end up shy, if someone thinks me funny, I am likely to keep cracking jokes."

In this modern age, marriage often ends in divorce. But divorce is a paradox. Marriage is simply a lifelong agreement to prioritise each others' needs, and do our best to fulfil them above all other personal agendas in life. Divorce says, I put my own agenda first. My agenda to have another love interest, or to prioritise my career. Simply put, it is self-defeating selfishness. It denigrates the sanctity and trust which everyone should accord to their word. It denotes a lack of self-respect, as self-respect gives way to self-interest. For it is admitting that I break my vow. I contradict myself. My words are meaningless.

We will likely fail miserably many times during a lifelong commitment to be patient, to be kind, to be understanding. Marriage will not always be happy. For better or for worse, after all. But it is through the imperfect process of attachment, and learning, and constantly recommitting to loving one person for your entire life, that you truly, madly, deeply learn to love, and learn to love everyone else better for it.

Still waters run deep my dear

A friend of mine and I were chatting about the tension between wanting and being happy, and my tongue stumbled upon the sentence - happiness is not found by doing something in order to be happy, but in being happy doing something. I realise this marked a culmination of a 12 year reflection on happiness, which can be found here: 1 2 3

It's surreal to realise that is the fabric of reality - the things you realise come full circle in the never-ending cycles of being.

Happiness is not found by doing something in order to be happy, but in being happy doing something. But doing what? Whilst there is happiness in simply being in the moment, there is more to happiness and joy - fundamentally, it comes from connectedness and being of value to others. A sense of usefulness and purpose.

Sometimes that purpose seems to come the pursuit of something; a place of wanting. Perfection, for example (arguably a human construct that does not really exist, but don't get me started on that). For me at least, being drawn to all-consuming pursuits like dance or medicine perhaps stems from an unfulfilled sense of human connection. In a way, it is a form of escape from that sadness - that sense of disconnection or isolation. But no matter how good you are, it never feels good enough, or like you've worked hard enough. The very escape and reward becomes a kind of punishment as you feel inadequacy - no matter how hard you try, it is never good enough for you, and you realise that you haven't actually resolved the underlying sense of disconnection, but that it has come out as inadequacy of another sort.

The pursuit of a relationship as a means to that end doesn't work either. Whilst a seemingly straightforward solution to the problem of human disconnect, this pursuit is actually damaging to the relationship in question if the entirety of the weight of your need for connection now rests on a single person. It generally ends up in neuroticism like 'Oh my God, why hasn't s/he texted back when it says s/he is 'online' or has 'read' the text', and a sense of disappointment when you realise that the relationship or person has not lived up to your expectation of what connectedness should be. Relationships are not a solution, or a 'magic bullet' cure to loneliness. If you think they are, then in the words of Sia, all your bullets ricochet. To love isn't about fulfilling your own need.

Happiness cannot be pursued. In a related vein of philosophical musings, you can't always get what you want, and getting what you think you want is often an exercise in realising that what you think you want isn't actually what you are really lacking. To paraphrase the words of Anna Pavlova, happiness cannot be chased, but like a butterfly, will come to rest gently on your shoulder.

There is happiness and satisfaction in being fully present in the moment that you are in, not being distracted from it by the past, or the future, or your own wants and desires. Whilst for some people that amounts to the New Age mindfulness of simply being, meditation and the like, for me it finds its best absolution in connection and belief in God. The belief that He loves us, and that He has made it this way, and is working in our lives. That the situations we are in, however they look to our human eyes, have value. Weak or strong, rich or poor. The sick inspire us with their fighting spirit, and the well take joy in caring for those in need. For it is through our individual circumstances that we are uniquely positioned to connect to others, and to mean something to other people. There can be many dancers, or waitresses, or admin officers. But no one else is truly in the same position, and no one else can replace us. It is out of this that we find purpose. And it is through the ongoing fulfilment of that purpose that joy arises. Joy is that sense of purpose that is fulfilled by an other-person centeredness in human connection. Joy looks outwards and runs deeper than a feeling of happiness.

Love, happiness, joy. All inextricably intertwined and culminating in moments of bliss, through a very good conversation with a friend.